Touching Down

Appreciating that four years is an absurdly long time in the Interverse, I'm considering returning to the lonely foundations of this blog with a somewhat different orientation. Back in 2008-9, when I was attempting to share the adventures of my tournament tribulations with the Internet community, I had the strange and disturbing experience of discovering that several of my opponents were reading my entries with the aim of examining my play for potential weakness. Obviously, this was alarming and rather demoralizing... Needless to say, I seriously reconsidered blogging; hence the dilapidated state of this thread.

However, I am under the impression that it would be interesting to return to this forum with the aim of digesting and reporting on famous games and positions, both past and present. Instead of primarily examining my own positions, the blog be more of a learning and exploration forum... I'm considering, but I'll think I'll pick it up again!

Tactical repeats

It's funny how certain combinations can show up again and again in games. Sometimes, I remember having the feeling that using such combinations was cheating - I didn't really win that game, I just used that old trick again. I wonder if there is something to that sense though. We can begin to rely on specific tactics in certain kinds of positions. If you've got a trick that the opponent seems to fall for over and over again, you can get lazy and fail to develop a greater sense of the nuances of the position(s).So here's a good case in point. I was black here, and this is just the sort of position where I developed a pattern in 2007 of always striving to nab the a-pawn.
14...Nc4
15.Bc1 Nxa3
16.e5 dxe5
17.Bxb7 Qxb7
18.bxa3 exd4
19.Rxd4 and I went on to win after a long struggle.

Here's another example, same theme.

Once again, 16...Nxa3 works to perfection.

And another one:

And of course, Nxa3!
It gets to the point where you can think of it, Sicilian defense 101 - go for the a-pawn with your knight and hope your opponent has an undefended knight on c3...

I think though, that the more important lesson to draw is a certain tactical awareness so that you can be primed and aware when similar opportunities arise in disimilar positions. For example:

Here I was white against a strong expert, and it was with great relish that I unleashed Bxh6! which let me off the hook after a long a difficult effort to mobilize my hanging pawns, and I went on to win.

Some More Unpleasantries

In a lot of these games, as I look over them, I remember feeling that I had reached reasonable middlegame/late opening positions, but then had only a weak sense (or no real sense) of how to proceed in the position. Maybe this classes as something to do with strategic assessment in complex positions. I find it hard to accurately evaluate threats and to judge potential plans.

1700 player—Joshua

1.c4 e5
2.g3 Nf6
3.Bg2 c6
4.e3 d5
5.cxd5 cxd5
6.d4 e4
7.f3 Bf5
My opponent here is playing a rather untheoretical English, and I'm not sure if a c6+d5 pawn structure was the best idea against it. Hard to say. Then, I don't really know if it would have been better to exchange e for f.
8.Nc3 Nc6
9.Nge2 Be7
Once the kings are castled, tension will build against the black center, and I needed to have some kind of a better sense of where my pieces could go to support it. Maybe I had to have the e-file clear so I could play Re8? If I just play something like exf3 here on move 9, my opponent plays 10.Bxf3 followed by Qb3 and/or Nf4 to gang up on d4. But maybe there's something tactical here. Perhaps I can really irritate him by playing 10...Nb4 11.0-0 Nc2 12.Rb1... maybe I can get a repetition... I'm not really buying it. BTW, if he swung over Qa4+ at some point to snag the Nb4, I think I can just play Qd7. Okay, maybe 9... exf3 10.Bxf3 Bb4 That seems more useful than Be7, but what about 11.a3? Maybe just 11...Bxc3 12.Nxc3. I don't think that bxc3 is good for him because of how it blocks out his bishop, though it might have potential to give him a menacing center. Then 12...0-0 and maybe I'm good. Hmmm
10.0-0 0-0
11.fxe4 Bxe4
12.Nxe4 Nxe4
13.Nc3Here, having left the center to the whims of chance, I find myself in trouble. Because I have the Be7 instead of having played that bishop elsewhere, I can't support my strongpoint on e4. It's precisely the kind of strategic mess I have a tendancy to get myself into because I will play through an opening with only a rudimentary sense of structures, and then find that my pieces are somehow not coordinating appropriately. Here, if 13...Nxc3 14.bxc3 the difference from the previous position I looked at with bxc3 is that black has no fast ability to pressurize the backward e-pawn. That means that white will be able to push it and liquidize it probably, giving him a monopoly on the center and a passed pawn to shove up my gut. I have to look at this more to determine if it's truly fatal, but at the time, I thought it was losing for me. I played
13...Re8, hoping that the threat of Bg5 would be helpful, but...
14.Nxe4 dxe4
15.Bxe4 Bg5
16.Qf3!
And I was out of ideas and facing an ugly defense. I managed to scrounge a draw, but he should have won.

Composting the Old Rot

That's how I'm thinking about it. I've been doing a lot of gardening lately, and it seems to me that the pile of old games I've played, some of them successful, many of them blighted, are fertile material to support a new crop of experiences if I will only turn them over a bit and lay them out.

Here's a 2007 win that I think I never blogged. It came near the end when I was writing a lot and increasingly strained for time, but it was a good experience.

1600 player-Joshua
1.d4 Nf6
2.c4 e6
3.Nc3 Bb4
4.Bg5 c5
5.f3?!

It makes sense to me to mark this move dubious because I don't see how an f3-e4 structure will work with the bishop on g5 here. It's possible that it's just a later move that makes it all go wrong, but I think that white's plan is kind of flawed. The point is that after a potential cxd4, Qxd4, if Bxc3, Qxc3, any time white plays e4, Nxe4 will be in the air as a possibility. Hence, f3-e4 would make sense if, and maybe only if white had also played d4-d5.So I played 5...h6
6.Bh4 cxd4
7.Qxd4 Nc6
8.Qd2
And even now I could have played Ne4!?, though I think it's not much better than equal at this point—still not what white would be looking for. Anyway, instead,
8... b6 and now
9.e4? Nxe4And white's in trouble.
10.Bxd8 Nxd2
11.Bh4 Nxf1
12.Kxf1 Bxc3
13.bxc3 Ba6And here I mopped up.

Alright, and here's another fertile disaster I had in 2007. This game is from a duel of many games played against one particular master, in all of which I had black... it wasn't really a duel, more like me just getting smooshed over and over and over.This is one of those organic kinds of positions without a lot of theory where I always thought that black should just play hedgehog-type moves and keep it chill and white's space advantage would eventually melt. I read somewhere once that black should not play d5, but should play for e5 in this kind of position, so that's usually how I would coordinate my pieces in this variation, but it seldom works, I find. This is the kind of position for me where I think that a little more opening theory knowledge would be helpful, as it would encourage me to have a more useful plan instead of just shuffling about until I get squashed.
10.Nbd2 a6
btw, I think a6 looks kind of lame, but I lost a game once in this structure by letting my opponent (another master who suckered me in this line) play Ba6 and trade off the light-squared bishops and then crucify me on the queenside light squares. So I was learning... but maybe not learning the right lessons.
11.Ng5 Nbd7
12.Nge4 Nxe4
13.Nxe4 e5So, I've gotten in my e5 push, and it looks like I might get to play f5 too and have some play.
14.Ng3!
And now I was suddenly stumped. It looks like f5 is not on the table, and my e5 pawn is pinned, which shows that I might have been kind of hasty. Maybe I needed to play Re8 and Bf8 first? Yeah, I think I need to look this up. Instead, I played
14... g6?!
15.f4 Bf6
16.Ne4 Bxe4
17.Bxe4Probably I'm close to lost now. I played 17...Ra7 to avoid losing the a-pawn, but that badly misplaces the rook, and the position just keeps getting worse.
18.fxe5 dxe5
19.Bh6
And now the e5-pawn (the advance of which was my entire plan in this bloody line!) is a major weakness, and I have to play the miserably groveling,
19...Re8 just to avoid losing it.
20.Bc6 Re6
21.d5 Re7
22.Qf2 Bg7
23.Be3Now I'm losing material. From here it was short and awful.
23...Qb8
24.Rad1 f5 Ahhh, my groveling advance. The plan is going so well...
25.d6 Re8
26.Bxb6
1-0
This game was bad enough, but taking into account that it was just one of a whole series of such disasters in this line, I think that's time for me to reexamine my approach to the position. It's tough to play against the these Colle/Trompowsky/Torre/Stonewall type positions, because as the player of the black pieces, you know that if you don't do something active, the white player is going to slowly suffocate you. (I find that there are simpler plans against the London). Maybe I should look up some theory and games and try to build a broader repertoire of potential ideas against these lines so that I can meet them more flexibly. Certainly my, play b6, d6, and strive for e5 idea is not flying most of the time...

Another Loss

I continue to reflect on my experiences from 2007. This example comes from one of the more frustrating games I had that year. I was white, and had had a very memorable game against a prominent master up until the endgame, which I was continuing to win, but we were in a time scramble.Here, black to move played 36...Rf8 and I completely neglected to look for problems. I was down to a few minutes, and was very very nervous - as one is wont to be when beating a hotshot master.
37.a7 Rf4
and now my heart stopped. It looked to me like I was losing all of a sudden and there was nothing I could do about it. All I could find was
38.Qf3?? Rh4+
39.Qh3 Rxh3+
40.gxh3 Qxh3+
41.Kg1 Qg3+
43.Kh2 Qa8
and I'm toast because the black king can catch the c-pawn.
If I had been a little tactically sharper though... and maybe if there had been a little more time, I would have found the saving move,
38.Qc7!
after which follows
38... Rh4+
39.Qh2 Rxh2
40.Kxh2 Qf4+
41.Kg1
and black runs out of checks and cannot stop the a-pawn.
I guess it remains anyone's guess whether I could have then won the won game with the little bit of time I had, but the point is that I blundered and missed a critical ONLY move in a time scramble. Looks to me like more weak tactics.

After a Looooong Break

Apologies to my steady readership. It's been a long winter/spring of non-chess life. I've been writing a book over the past year, and during the heavy writing season (when I'm not focusing on funding the project) it's really hard to find any time for chess. Of late though I've been following the chess world a bit more, and I've been considering how to make a comeback.

When last I was blogging, as some of you may remember, I had been going through a rough stretch in my play. Slumps have been very rare creatures (Thankfully) in my praxis, but last year's was an unpleasant one, and it seems to me that the first thing to do as I consider how to reapproach the tournament scene is to reflect on what went wrong last year and to try to learn from it. I envision a series of postings analyzing some of the uglier experiences.

I started 2007 with a rating of 1880 USCF. I reached a peak for the year of 1904, and finished on the boomerang low note of 1842, though this was something of a rebound from my nadir at 1806. I won 18 games, including a scalp of a master, drew 20 games, and lost 17, for close to a 50 percent performance. Kind of mediocre.

I think I'll start with a couple of examples of blunderitis which seemed to creap into my play last year after a several year absence.

Here's a position that I think typifies some of my less successful play from 2007. I was white, playing in a position where I was under some pressure and rather uncomfortable. Something that I thnk came up a number of times in 2007 that was interesting was a tendency in my play to seek "advantages" based on principles, rather than assessing positions concretely. Here, for example, I think that I sought this structure, with my opponent having split q-side pawns, and myself with hanging pawns, because I thought that the isolated c-pawn would be weak. I hadn't thought about the fact that my opponent could simply push c7-c5 at an auspicious moment to clear away the weakness—hadn't thought about it until I got to the structure, that is.

Here now, I was struggling with the problem of how to relieve the pressure on the Nf3. Now I think that Ncd2 was probably the easiest way, though I'm still uncomfortable with the consequences of a c5 push by black. Basically, I think that white is struggling a little all around, but I played the ridiculous 21.Qf1??, thinking that I would move the knight and welcome an exchange of bishops - perhaps also fantasizing that my opponent would not play c5. This seems to me to be the kind of a blunder that happens when you're so caught up in trying to solve a problem on the board that you begin to lose sight of the position. Even so, though, it's kind of an amazing blunder for me.

Here's another example of a position in which I blundered. I had the black pieces, and was playing an uptempo game in 30. At the time, I remember thinking that my opponent had gone wrong in the opening and that I would be better, when in fact, I now think that the position is rather unclear. In any case, white has just played Nxd5, capturing my knight, and I need to respond. I had calculated 9...Nxd4 10.Qd1 Nxf3+ 11.Bxf3 Bxd2+ 12.Qxd2 exd5, and had somehow overlooked the simple fact that white can now recapture on d5, threatening b7 as well as c4. The pressure is kind of irritating in that position, but the game is certainly fully playable. After some thought, however, realizing that I was using too much time given the control, I reached out and played 9...exd5?? 10.Bxb4 when, of course, black is in a lot of trouble, down a piece for pawns. I think this blunder was sort of an inversion of moves problem, but still, a pretty significant disaster.

So, what can I learn from these two examples? I think that I was lacking a certain fluidity with my tactics. I wasn't necessarily seeing the board badly all the time, but I was not sufficiently comfortable with my visualizing of the relationships between the pieces to ensure that I would not occasionally blunder terribly. Obviously, blundering like this is a series cause of fast losses...

A Little Chess

Work has been swamping my chess playing schedule this month, so there hasn't been much action to write about. As these things go, a little action often means mediocre action, but I think I've learned some things, even from sporadic and inconsistent play.I was white here, and feeling pretty forlorn already. Clearly, I've lost an exchange, and I was just trying to come up with a way of holding down the damage. Hence,
15.Bd2? Nxa1
16.Qxa1 etc. and I was playing to somehow not lose.
Soon after the game, the idea 15.Rb1! was pointed out to me by none other than BCC Master Riordan, and I immediately protested that it lost the d-pawn. It must be bad right? Ahem. Play might have proceeded something like: 15...Nxd4 16.Nfxd4 Bxb1 17.Nc3 Bg6 18.f5 exf5 19.Bxd5 Rb8 20.e6 fxe6 21.Nxe6And white is looking very happy, superior development and open lines accounting for the material. Again and again I have come across this lesson - it is absolutely CRUCIAL in chess to be concrete - look deeper at lines that you want to dismiss instinctively and hunt for attacking patterns, especially when things are going badly.

Strategic Themes

One thing that I find crops up a fair amount in over-the-board praxis is that I'm playing along in a game in the early stages and my opponent suddenly springs a move that seems completely out of left field. Usually it's a move that has no relationship to established theory, and often there's something clearly positionally or strategically questionable about the move, but it can be amazingly difficult to refute or punish such moves. There's very little guidance for this problem in the literature, as on the professional level, I'm sure that the answers appear more-or-less self-evident, but I find that it's easy to get into trouble scratching away after a solution to a problem that is hardly as transparent as it seems like it ought to be.

Sometimes you can find an answer by instinct. In this mainstream opening position, I had an opponent who played 5...d5? a move that clearly defies the logic of the position. He's opening up the center when behind in development, and willfully fixing himself with an isolated pawn that will be hard to defend. Alright, so 6.exd5 exd5, and then I sat there wondering how I could hurry up and win the isolani. I felt that his play was so illogical that I ought to be grabbing material immediately. 7.Bb5 Bd7 (maybe Nge7 can work? It holds the Nc6 and d5 pawn, but it is just so slow.) 8.Nxd5 Nxd4 9.Bxd7+ Qxd7 10.Qxd4 Rd8 and now, though I was still able to emerge with my pawn, the position had become at the very least, threatening. I suppose that my play was still about right, but the point is that these problems are often more difficult than they appear at first glance.

Here is a position from my most recent game:For readers who've seen some of my recent postings, yes, a large number of my games with both colors seems to be hedgehogs these days... At this point, I think it was time for black to play 10...Nbd7, probably to be followed by b7-b6 and a q-side fianchetto. Instead, my opponent played: 10...e5?! He wanted to activate his c8 bishop, and presumably hoped to treat the position like a mainline Kalashnikov. I knew that this had to be unsound, but how to prove it?
11 Nf5 Bxf5
12 exf5 Nc6
13 Re1 h6
14 f4 Rfe8
15 Qf2 Rad8
Clearly, there have been some less-than-perfect moves by both players to bring us to this position, and I think that white is still objectively for favor, but the point is that the whole endeavor has taken on a considerable note of risk. It would be easy for white to lose control of the position, dropping c4 or one of the f-pawns, and then black's two central pawns could really tell in an endgame.
Here I played 16.Nd5 and good things happened, but after 16...Nxd5 17.exd5 Nd4 18.Be3 Bf6, matters are far from clear, and the position is dangling close to a black advantage. The point is that white's pawns are unstable and rather over-extended.
I suppose that the moral of something like this is that you really can't afford to get too self-confident with your decisions just because you know that the opponent is trying something unkosher. If you don't have a clear instinct for the refutation, even very improbable plans can cause trouble.